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Quick hits on sports, other things

January 15, 2013 - Troy Banning

Well, I’m going to give this blogging thing a go again, only this time with a clear purpose in mind. We’re going to call this “I think.” A bunch of quick hitting thoughts, most sports related, but not all, that I hope you’ll find interesting.

I’ll try to do this on a semi-regular basis, and by “semi-regular,” I mean the nights I’m sitting in the office waiting for coaches to call in reports. Writing this will make the time fly faster than trying to count the ceiling tiles.

And away we go ...

I think the North Central Conference wrestling tournament on Saturday could go right down to the wire. Webster City – the host school – has won back-to-back league championships, but the Lynx won’t be the favorite. That distinction goes to Humboldt, which possesses arguably the deepest roster in the conference. If the Wildcats wrestle to their full capability, it’s going to be tough to catch them.

But I think it’s OK the Lynx aren’t the favorites. They weren’t last year either, and that worked out pretty well.

I think Webster City will be in trouble though if junior 138-pounder Tanner Hild isn’t able to go because of a lingering back injury. In the lineup and he’s a No. 1 or No. 2 seed capable of scoring bunches of points. Without him the Lynx may have too steep a hill to climb.

And I think you all should come out to the new WCHS gym to watch on Saturday. Seriously, it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Sticking with wrestling, I think WCHS junior 145-pounder Jake Powers has been somewhat overlooked this season. Top-ranked (182) Dylan Fielder and No. 4 (160) Connor Larson get a lot of the headlines, but Powers has been just as steady. He’s got 23 wins, trailing Fielder by two and Larson by one on the team hierarchy. His arrival could come this weekend.

I think WCHS girls’ basketball coach Nicole Muhlenbruch is going to get her program turned around. It may not happen this season, but it will happen. If you could see her in the minutes after a loss ... let’s just say it hits her hard. She cares so much, and she knows the game. Stick with her.

I think I played Jedi mind tricks on Josh Oglesby on Sunday. The Iowa shooting guard was flat out awful in the first half against Northwestern, and I went after him on Twitter. I said my 83-year-old grandma could whip him in H-O-R-S-E. He caught fire in the second half … you can all thank me later.

I think Lance Armstrong is probably going to apologize to all the wrong people in his doping confessional to Oprah. He’ll say he’s sorry to his fans and his family for deceiving them for all these years.

Sorry, but Armstrong doesn’t need to apologize to his fans. They didn’t lose anything with the knowledge that he cheated and probably permanently harmed his body just so he could pedal a bicycle faster.

Nope, he needs to apologize to guys like Tyler Hamilton and Greg LeMond, former friends and teammates he bullied after they came out and said Armstrong was a cheater. Armstrong made their lives miserable, so he should man up and admit he was a coward.

I think Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are the Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer of the NFL. Nicklaus won more major championships than Palmer – see the resemblance? – but Palmer was always the more popular of the two. Brady could win 18 more Super Bowl rings and the public will still prefer Manning.

And lastly, I think my wife takes Hollywood way too seriously. She had my two girls plopped in front of the television at 4 p.m. on Sunday so they could see all of the “dresses,” as Kelly says. Personally speaking, what Anne Hathaway wears on the Red Carpet is as compelling as a cricket match.